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Galaga Bartop 19" LCD Rotating Display *UPDATED 11/26/12*

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Ritalin:
Got it, thanks, leapinlew.

I use Illustrator all the time, so I'll place the graphic into Illustrator and do exactly what you said from your link (scale up, print, cut). Thanks again.

weisshaupt:

--- Quote from: Ritalin on January 16, 2008, 03:32:35 pm ---[I was thinking more about the rotation, and my goal would be to have a long dowel go straight trough to the back of the cabinet, with a mini turning steering wheel in the back. This way the front and sides would not need a lever or something to pull to manually turn it.


--- End quote ---

Using a manual method will work, but depending on the friction in your mount you may need a Brake to keep the monitor from moving as people are playing and shaking the Cabinet, or just under its own weight (my monitor was bottom heavy to the 4x3 position)

 The other thing I found was that a LCD monitor is easy to turn if you grab the outside-- not so easy if you try to turn it from the center. One of my first attempts used a belt and and a pulley, and I simply couldn't get enough torque with my motor to move it.. then it tried to move it by hand... it was really, really hard.  Torque is God. If you plan on moving this on a dowel arrangement, plan on having a large wheel (greater than 16 inches) on the back . Also, I imagine a large wheel will assist in  feeling ones way to the back of a of the cabinet to turn it -- unless it literally is going to be on a "bar top" and you can just walk behind the bar.
  I am not sure what Mala lets you do (i used 3d arcade), but you may consider letting the PC do the turning. I wrote an .exe file to turn things via the parallel port automatically based on the mame info fo rthe game, and it uses "off the shelf" electronics. 20 Solder connections, and you are done..

Also,  It has a lot of WOW factor when it happens (guests are always somewhat surprised when they select a game and the monitor starts moving. ) It also has the benefit of applying a brake to the motor wheel once its dione moving  so the monitor is likely to stay where it stops.

Ritalin:
Excellent points. An automatic motorized rotation mechanism controlled by the PC would be AMAZING, but I have absolutely NO idea how I would pull that off.

I'll definitely keep your suggestion in mind about maximizing the amount of torque. Good point. I really don't want to ditch the idea of a rotating display, so even if I run into issues with a back wheel idea, even if I have to use a side lever, that to me if better than no rotation at all.

weisshaupt:

--- Quote from: Ritalin on January 17, 2008, 01:14:41 pm ---Excellent points. An automatic motorized rotation mechanism controlled by the PC would be AMAZING, but I have absolutely NO idea how I would pull that off.
--- End quote ---

Just copy mine?  Our two projects are very similar,  the mechanism I used is pretty simple, and I am certainly willing to help you get it done. What part of the project seems difficult? If its the electronics work, I can easily order the parts, build them and ship the driver to you in an envelope at cost. (it would take me about 20 minutes to solder it all together)  The only part I am not sure of is how your front end would call my driver program with the required parameter for each game (3x4 or 4x3) I can modify the program to use different values of course. I could probably even make it parse through Mame Info to get the right parm, but I am not sure how gracefully that would work, as you would have to call MAME from a BAT file so my program could see what game was being loaded....


On an unrelated note... there is one other caution I forgot to mention--- Make sure Your ANSI mounting holes are dead center if you are using a standard monitor mount. Mine were not, so the screen ended up almost an inch to the right of center when the monitor rotated. I said a couple of curse words and described what an Idiot I was, and then proceeded to design a new mount....

Ritalin:
weisshaupt, that's an incredibly generous offer. Yes, my biggest concern is the electronics works as well as getting things to work properly with MALA. I think what I'd like to do is simply put any automatic motorized rotation mechanism controlled by the PC on hold for a bit. I've read how many others ran into problems just having a rotating display in their bartops, so if I add this to the mix, it may be a bit overwhelming for a newbie like myself. But seriously, thank you so much for the offer of your time and experience and if I get the manual version working properly, I may be able to modify it for automated rotation later on down the road.

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